Need advice on preventing duplicate entries in People table

Hi,

In my database, I have a "People" table where I store basic information about people e.g. PersonId, FirstName, LastName, Gender, etc.

There will be lots of entries made into this table and I want to prevent duplicate entries as much as humanly possible. I'd appreciate some pointers on what I should do to minimize duplicates.

My primary concerns are:

1. Duplicate entries for the same person using the person's full name vs. given name e.g. Mike Smith and Michael Smith
2. Making sure that two separate individuals with identical names do get entered into the table and get their unique PersonId's.

Not even sure how I can even possibly know if two individuals with identical names are two different people without having additional information but I wanted to ask the question anyway.

Thanks, Sam